Guild Wars_ Edge of Destiny - J. Robert King [3]
Eir stood there unmoving except for the vein that pulsed in her temple. “Patrons.” With mallet and chisel in hand, she strode toward the door.
Garm broke from his pose to lope at her heels.
The man in the doorway nearly stumbled off the threshold.
Eir said, “You have come full of . . . courage, but it smells of hops.”
“Yes!” the man enthused, glancing back at a group of twenty or so norn warriors swaying in the courtyard. “I am Sjord Frostfist.”
“Sjord Foamfist?” she mispronounced, raising an eyebrow.
“Exactly. And I have come by Snow Leopard and Raven and Bear—by every living beast—to declare war on the Dragonspawn!”
Eir nodded. “You’ve come to the wrong place. I am not the Dragonspawn.”
Sjord laughed. “Of course you aren’t. You are norn, like me.”
“Not quite like you.”
“No! Of course not,” Sjord said, suddenly earnest. “You’re an artist. While I carve up monsters, you carve up rocks.”
The warriors laughed.
Eir’s fist flexed around the mallet handle as if she were about to carve Sjord himself.
“No offense meant, of course. Somebody has to make statues of us.”
Garm looked to his master, wondering why she didn’t just kill the man. She could. This man and all the others. Or Garm could. With just a word from her, he would tear the man’s throat out, but Eir never gave the word.
“You want a statue in your image.”
Sjord put his finger to his nose, indicating that she understood exactly.
“Pick any you wish,” she said, gesturing to the statues behind her. “Brave young fools just like you, who gathered at the moot and drank and decided to save the world. I’ve met you before, a hundred times. Each of these men went to fight the Dragonspawn.”
Sjord’s grin only widened. “Then we understand each other.” He thrust a bag of coins into her hand.
Eir stared levelly at him. “Take your money. Go rent a room. Go lie down and sleep. You cannot defeat the Dragonspawn.”
Sjord stepped back, affronted, and the warriors behind him raised their eyebrows. “You are saying we should give up? You are saying that our people should get used to fleeing our homelands? Why do you oppose a man who would fight our foe?”
“I do not oppose you. I warn you.”
“Warn me of what?”
“You cannot defeat the Dragonspawn. You will go to fight him but will end up fighting for him.”
Sjord shook his head. “I will fight him and kill him, and you will commemorate what I do. There is your payment.”
Eir slipped open the drawstring. The bag held a small fortune in silver. She sighed. “Come, Sjord Frostfist. Let us select the block of wood that will be your memorial.”
“Monument,” he corrected. “And, it will be stone, not wood.”
“Silver buys wood. Gold buys stone.”
Sjord scowled, hanging his head. “Wood, then.”
Eir pressed past him and strode into the courtyard, with Garm loping behind. “Fir is better than stone, anyway,” she said, passing a row of blocks and boles along one wall. “Fir is alive. It grows out of stone. Its roots break the stone into sand.”
“Yes,” Sjord said, the hopeless twinkle returning to his eyes. “Which of these great boles will become my statue?”
“This one.” Eir stopped beside a fir trunk three feet wide and ten feet tall. “This one will immortalize you.”
Sjord stared at it as if he could see his own figure trapped in the wood. He slowly nodded. “Good, then. Carve me.”
Eir nodded grimly, hoisting the huge bole and planting it on the ground in the center of the courtyard. “You, stand over there.”
Sjord moved into position and gestured excitedly to his comrades, who gathered around, quaffing from their flagons.
“Don’t move!” she ordered.
Sjord snapped his head up, trying to look ferocious.
Garm sympathized.
As the man posed, Eir returned to her workshop. A few moments later, she emerged, wearing a carving belt filled with dozens of blades, from axes and hatchets to knives and chisels. The band of warriors gazed in awe as Eir strode up before the fir bole.
“Spirit of Wolf, guide my work.”
A few of the